Matt Slick Live: October 2, 2024

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The following program is recorded content created by The Truth Network. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Matt is the founder and president of the Christian Apologetics Research Ministry, found online at CARM .org.

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When you have questions about Bible doctrines, turn to Matt Slick Live! For answers, taking your calls and responding to your questions at 877 -207 -2276.

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Here's Matt Slick. Matt Slick Live!

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Matt Slick Live! Matt Slick Live!

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Alright, so, this kind of stuff happens live. And there was a music feed coming in.

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The producer called me up on my phone. He goes, hey, what's going on? Are you playing music? I said, no. So, make sure that nothing's playing.

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And I got nothing going here. I'll check my stuff, too. But how about this?

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If you want to, you know, I'd say give me a call. I'll give it a shot. 877 -207 -2276.

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If you want to email me a question or a comment, that's easy. Just send an email to info at CARM .org.

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Info at CARM .org. And in the subject line, please put in there radio comment or radio question.

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And we can get to, get into that. And we can, you know, get them on the air. I'm checking right now my system.

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We have oddball things that happen every now and then, just making sure there's not a feed of something

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I'm not aware of as far as music goes. And just shutting everything down. So, other than the stream here.

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And I'm going to get into some teaching here. So, people have told me that they really enjoy it when

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I just do a Bible study, when I start teaching. And as soon as I said that, something flashed into my mind.

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So, I'm just going to go there and see what it is about. Because Romans 5 -1 is important.

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So, I think I'll just start in Romans chapter 5. And go through some stuff. And we'll see.

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There we go. Man, we've got issues, we've got problems. This happens every now and about two or, every two or three months we have these issues.

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And they'll kind of, they'll kind of surface all at once. Sorry, I was talking. I was muted at the same time.

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I had to unmute myself. So, what I'm going to do is go to Romans chapter 5.

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And I'm going to teach. Because we are having problems with the phones. And with something else going on.

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But I decided I'm going to do the show. Because I'm not going to be on the air for three weeks. Because I'm going to Europe.

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And I'll be doing the Footsteps of Paul tour. So, we're going to Turkey. To the various churches that were in Revelation.

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We're going to go to Greece. And then we're going to go to Italy. And from there we come back home. So, I leave this

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Sunday. And get back three weeks on a Sunday. And that's what we're going to be doing.

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So, there probably won't be any live shows during that whole time. And that's just what it is. So, for those of you who are

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Matt Slick addicts. You're going to just have to suffer. And go through some withdrawals. So, there you go.

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All right. Now, what I'm going to do is get to Romans chapter 5. And just start teaching out of it.

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Because Romans 5 is awesome. Romans 5 is really good stuff. Let's see how far we get. Just jump right in.

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Therefore, having been justified by faith. We have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Now, justification, ladies and gentlemen. Is the legal declaration of righteousness. Now, we know that from what

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Paul said in Romans 4. When he's talked about. And Abraham believed

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God. And it was credited to him as righteousness. That's Romans 4, 3. And then in verse 5.

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But to the one who does not work, but believes in him who justifies the ungodly.

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His faith is credited as righteousness. So, notice the same term. Abraham believed

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God. He was credited to him as righteousness. And in verse 5, his faith was credited as righteousness.

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So, Paul calls that being justified. So, justification is being credited with righteousness.

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And this, of course, is by faith. So, that's what's going on. And when we go to Romans 5, 1. It says, therefore, having been justified by faith.

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So, this is important. Because it's an aorist passive participle. Having been justified.

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So, aorist means past tense. So, it's a past tense continuous action that you've received.

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That's what an aorist passive participle is. Participle means an ing word.

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Walking, talking, thinking. Things like that. And so, it's like saying, in the past, you were justified in a continuous sense.

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That's what's going on there. Therefore, having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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Why would that be that we have peace? Because the wrath of God abides upon all people who are not in Christ.

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The wrath of God is the judgment of God. Now, there are those who say in pre -trib rapture lore.

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They say that we're not appointed to wrath, but salvation. And what they'll do is they'll say what that means.

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They were not appointed to the tribulation period. That's not what the

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Bible says. It says, God has not destined us for wrath, but for obtaining salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ.

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The word wrath there, it's just opposed with salvation. So, therefore, it's the opposite of salvation.

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It means damnation. So, for God has not destined us for damnation, but for obtaining salvation through our

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Lord Jesus Christ. So, this is really interesting. It's really important because that's what the Bible simply says.

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It simply says that God is the one who justifies us.

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And it goes on to say in Romans 5 too, through whom also we have obtained our introduction by faith into his grace.

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An introduction by faith into the grace of God. So, what's going on?

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The introduction by faith into the grace of God. Well, it says we have been justified by faith.

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Through whom we also have obtained an introduction by faith into this grace in which we stand.

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So, what Paul is telling us is that this issue of our introduction is only through the blood and sacrifice of Jesus our

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Lord. This means then that we are entered into the kingdom of God.

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We are entered into the work of God through the person and work of Jesus our

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Savior. And this is important because we want to understand that the only reason we have our faith and our hope is because of the work of God.

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So, we have obtained our introduction by faith into this grace. What grace? The grace of being justified by faith in which we stand.

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We stand in that faith and in that justification. And so, we exalt, E -X -U -L -T, in hope of the glory of God.

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So, what we're doing is we are participating in the work of God, in the faith of God, in our lives as we exalt and we hope in the glory of what

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God is doing through us. And this is because we've been justified by faith. Now, what's interesting is that Paul gets into verse 3 of Romans 5 and he says,

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And not only this, but we also exalt. Now, that means, to exalt means to rejoice to a great degree.

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And not only this, but we also exalt in our tribulations. Knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.

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Perseverance, proven character. Proven character, hope. And hope does not disappoint because the love of God has been poured out within our hearts through the

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Holy Spirit who was given to us. So, I don't know about you, but I find this verse difficult to implement.

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When it says, we exalt in our tribulations. Now, generally speaking, a tribulation can be most of anything.

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It can be bankruptcy, it can be a flat tire, it can be a sickness, it can be a car accident, it can be a loved one who is under great duress and problems.

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But I think really what's going on here is the tribulation, which I love the Greek word, is flipsis.

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T -H -L -I -P -S -I -S. Flipsis, that comes from that word.

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I love that word. And, because it's fun to say. So, we exalt in our tribulations.

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If you were to take your eyes off of your situation and put them on the issue of Christ who was persecuted for his truth, and we then are persecuted because of what we say about Christ, then we exalt in that because we're deemed worthy to suffer even as Jesus suffered.

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This is an incredible privilege as a Christian to suffer for the name of Christ. Now, this may not seem like an intuitive,

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I don't know, position to hold. About the idea of glory and rejoicing and thanking and praising

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God in our persecutions, in our tribulations. Well, what

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Paul is doing is he's speaking out of wisdom. Because a lot of times what we've got to understand is that what we go through can be very difficult.

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I know there's people out there on the East Coast right now who are recovering from the hurricane. And, I know that there are people who've lost loved ones.

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I know there are people who are having very strong financial difficulties. I know there are people whose cars are broken down and we're going to get the money to pay for it.

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All kinds of stuff. Our children are sick, our parents are sick, or whatever it might be, or you might lose your job.

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And, how do we exalt God in this? How do we rejoice in it? The only way to do that is to realize that whatever occurs, occurs by God's permission.

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He has a reason for letting it come to us. And, I'd like you to think for a moment about eternity.

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Picture yourself in eternity looking back on your life here on earth. And, you can remember the joy of your salvation, the joy of a wedding, the joy of family, the joy of getting a new car that provides your needs, a new job, all these great things.

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And, we rejoice God, we praise God. And, you can also look back, imagine yourself doing this, at the varying trials that you've had to go through.

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What might you think or feel? This is completely imaginary. What might you think or feel in heaven looking back upon them?

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Might you wish that you praised God more through them?

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And, trusted Him more through them? Might you have regret up there in heaven saying,

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I wish I had trusted Him more in that one situation or those 20 situations? Just a thought.

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Because, that's what I think of every now and then. Through trials and tribulations. Now, I'm almost 68. So, I've really been around the block in a lot of ways.

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And, have gone through some incredible stuff. As we all have. I mean, it's not just one person, but we all have.

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But, I can look through the history and the memories. And, see where God has provided, even when

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I saw no option of it. And so, that's how I'm able now to praise

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God, even through the difficult times that come now. And, there are plenty I'm in right now. There's plenty you're in right now.

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Praise God through that. And, we'll get back to the break. We'll talk a little bit more about what this leads to in the wisdom of God.

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Be right back after these messages. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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Alright, everybody. Welcome back to the show. And, I'm going to continue going through Romans chapter 5. Because, there's so much meat in there.

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Good stuff worth getting to. So, we went into the issue of our tribulations. And, knowing that tribulation brings about perseverance.

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We have to go through these things. And, this is what verse 4 says. Perseverance brings proven character.

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It brings proven character and proven character hope. And, I can tell you that. That is so true.

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I can tell you. I've had so many times in my life where I've just seen God manifest the truths of His love and commitment to me.

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And, my wife, my family, and things like that. And, it's happened to you too. So, this is why it says in verse 5, hope does not disappoint.

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See, hope and faith and all this are only as good as who you put your faith in. And so, if you put your faith in the

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Lord Jesus, your hope is in Him. Then, you won't be disappointed. You may have to go through some tough stuff. That's for real.

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But, the love of God has been poured out within our hearts.

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Now, this is because God is indwelling us. You have the love of God if you're a true

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Christian. You have the love of God within you. Now, let me ask you. Are you quenching it?

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Are you submitting it to other things? Are you letting love in your heart grow and be the thing by which you are known?

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Now, as I say these words, I'm convicted. Because, my strength is intellect and understanding and teaching.

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But, I think, in my honest opinion, that those things are subservient to the issue of the love of God that must flow through us.

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I think that is something that reflects the character of God. Because, 1 John 4, verse 8 says, God is love.

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And, the nature of love is utter centered. John 15, verse 13, greater love has no one than this but he lays life down for his friend.

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So, I believe that love is very important. Because, the love of God has been poured out within our hearts.

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And, this is because Jesus Christ died on the cross. And, what I like is that it says it's through the

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Holy Spirit who was given to us. Now, that's good stuff. We should have hope and trust and confidence in what he has done,

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Jesus, on the cross. And, the love of God is poured into us and upon us through the work of the

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Holy Spirit. The Trinity is there. Because, the next verse says, for while we were still helpless at the right time,

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Christ died for the ungodly. Helpless describes our situation before God.

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We cannot do anything to merit any favor with God. We cannot do anything by which we are then justified.

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Now, in false religious systems like Catholicism, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, Islam, they teach varying ways of helping themselves.

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Because, we have to understand, the Bible says we're helpless. But, the false religions, what they do is they add works to the sacrifice of Christ.

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See, he died for the ungodly. And, we cannot add to what Christ has done.

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We cannot. But, so many cults do that. False religious systems do that. So, here's what it says in verse 7.

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For one will hardly die for a righteous person. But, though perhaps for the good man, someone might care to die.

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But, God, I love this. But, God demonstrates, this is

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Romans 5a. This is one of the verses you should memorize. But, God demonstrates his love toward us in that while we were yet sinners,

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Christ died for us. In that while we were yet sinners, while we were helpless, we could do nothing.

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Christ did what we had to do. We couldn't do. Christ did what was necessary. Christ died for us.

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Christ took our place. Christ did what we absolutely had no ability to do anything.

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And, we have to understand that this is what God does. He has from eternity past set these things into motion.

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And, that he has died for us. That statement, Christ died for us, the last part of Romans 5a, is something we've heard so many times that it's easy to just kind of gloss over it.

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What this means is that Christ, who is God in flesh, became one of us and suffered at the hands of ungodly people.

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And then, allowed himself to be beaten and whipped and scourged and then nailed to a cross so that he could pay for our sins right there.

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The very act of evil that was put upon him is the very act of goodness by which we're saved.

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Christ died for us. And, notice what this says, justified by his blood.

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Now, we're justified by faith. But, what Paul is doing here is saying that that sacrifice, the shedding of his blood, is what makes us right.

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Not the blood and works. Not the blood and baptism.

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Not the blood of Christ and anything. It's only what Christ has done.

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We're justified, we're made right by his blood. And, that's a symbol.

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Blood is used as a representation of the whole sacrifice. The death of Christ on the cross, which will fulfill the law.

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And, from that, we shall be saved from the wrath of God through him. We will, we shall be, it's going to happen, be saved from the wrath of God.

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That's what salvation is. Being saved from the wrath of God through Jesus.

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So, a lot of people don't get that. They think salvation is simply being forgiven and going to heaven.

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And, that's true. It's there, too. But, I want people to understand that salvation is being saved from the judgment of God.

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Saved from that. How is that accomplished? By our faith in what Jesus did.

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And, that's it. Faith alone in Christ alone. Not by faith and anything that we do.

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I've spent hundreds and hundreds of hours arguing with Mormons, Jehovah's Witnesses, Muslims, Roman Catholics, Eastern Orthodox, Christadelphians.

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Hundreds and hundreds, thousands and thousands of hours over the past 44 years doing this. And, they always have

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Christ's sacrifice and whatever it is that their group says. Now, Muslims, they don't believe in the sacrifice of Christ.

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So, you exclude them from this particular aspect of the conversation. But, Mormonism, it's

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Christ and your good works. Jehovah's Witnesses, it's Christ and your good works. It's Eastern Orthodox, Christ and your good works.

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Roman Catholicism, Christ and your good works. It's what he has done plus your baptism and or your sacramental participation and or your sincerity and or your goodness, your ability to keep certain things good and not do certain things bad.

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And, this is foolish pride. It's pride. And, people say, no, it's not, man.

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It's not pride when you humbly trust in God and you verify and you show the work of God in your heart by doing good things.

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I don't have any problem with that. What I have a problem with, what the Bible has a problem with is adding those works that you've done to the finished work of God.

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And, saying that it's by my faith in Christ and by my works. Those two are what bring me to salvation.

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That is the gospel of the devil. It's no gospel at all.

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It's a curse. There's the music. We'll be right back. And then, we'll continue on with Romans 5, verse 10.

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Be right back. Please stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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Welcome back to the show. Hope you're enjoying this discussion or actually teaching. And, the reason

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I'm doing this is because they're having phone problems. Instead of not being on the air, decided to come on and do some teaching. And, that's why we're not taking any calls.

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Not because we don't want to, but because the phone system is down right now. And, I'm going to be out of the studio or off the air for three weeks, starting next week.

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Because, I'm going to Europe on a Footsteps of Paul tour. And, I'll have a lot of pictures, a lot of stories when

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I get back. All right. Let me continue with this light level study here on the radio.

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In Romans 5, starting at verse 10 or continuing at verse 10. And, it says, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of His Son.

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Much more, having been reconciled, we shall be saved by His life. So, this is just a reiteration of what was going on before.

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While we were enemies, we were reconciled. When we were against God and God was against us,

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He still loved us enough and mercifully died for us and made us right through the person and work of Jesus Christ.

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That's the only way it could be done. It's the only way. You cannot be saved. You cannot be reconciled with God by anything that you do in your sincerity or goodness or anything.

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You do not maintain your place with God. You do not maintain your position with God. You do not regain your position with God by anything that you do.

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You've got to understand that your salvation, your deliverance from the righteous judgment of God, your justification, which is by faith, is by faith alone in Christ alone.

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Now, the faith that God grants to you, Philippians 1 .29, is a faith that is true because it's in Christ, which is the work of God, that you believe in Jesus, John 6 .29.

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So, the faith that we're talking about here is not dead faith, but the faith that God has granted to us. But, this faith is also concomitant with the issue of regeneration, us being born again,

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John 3 .3 -8 and 2 Corinthians 5 .17, that we're made new creatures.

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And so, because we are made new creatures, we're dwelt by the Lord God, and that's Hebrews, excuse me, that's

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John 14 .23. Because that's the case, then we are in a state of reconciliation. But, this occurs only by the faith that God grants to us, that's in Jesus.

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Now, you've got to understand, this is important, because we're not justified by faith and anything we do. I could say this over and over and over, but it's by faith, by faith, by faith, only, only, only, faith only, faith only, faith only.

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That's how we're made right with God. Now, this faith is not just an intellectual acknowledgment that God exists, that's called assentia, which means, yeah,

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God exists, whatever, and they don't care. And they go, we're not talking about that. And this is what I battle with, with the false teachers on the internet, all over the place.

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They want to always do the same thing. They always differentiate between true faith and false faith, and say that I'm teaching false faith.

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I said, no, no, no. And we go to James 2 .14 -26, we talk about this. True faith comes from God, and that which comes from God in and of itself is sufficient to save you.

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That's the point. And then you do good works, not to show God that you're good, or to get yourself right, or maintain your place with God, but that it's a manifestation of God's work in you, that he grants that you do good works.

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That's why we're created. One of the reasons we're created, Ephesians 2, 8, and 9. All right, now, having said that, we can move on a little bit, but, you know, got a lot to go through here.

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So we're reconciled through the death of Christ. Because the death of Christ was the place on the cross where he bore our sins, 1

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Peter 2 .24. And he was the life sacrifice. That's out of Leviticus 17, verses 11 and verse 14, 11 in particular, fulfilling the law requirement.

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So Jesus Christ did what's necessary, completely and totally on the cross. What do we do? We receive.

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John 1 .12, as many as received him to them, he gave the right to be called the children of God. So we trust in what

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Christ has done and by faith. That's the faith that God grants to us. Philippians 1 .29, the faith that's in Christ.

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John 6 .29. This is so good. This means that God gets all the glory. If you disagree with what

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I'm telling you right here, you're probably not a Christian or you're just ignorant. Or maybe you're a Catholic or maybe you're an

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EO, Eastern Orthodox. Maybe you're a Mormon. Maybe you're Jehovah's Witness. Maybe you're something else. And you say, no, Matt, it's not by faith alone, but faith and all that you can do.

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2 Nephi 25 .23. Or it's faith and keeping the commandments as the

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February 1st, 1983 Watchtower magazine says. You see, this is what the false teachers teach.

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In fact, Eastern Orthodoxy teaches that your baptism is where you get saved. So it's faith and a ceremony.

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And through the baptism that you maintain your position with God by participating in the sacraments. The graces of God moved in and through you to make you more right with God.

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This is all bunk. It's all false doctrine. This is why the Eastern Orthodox Church is not Christian.

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And the Roman Catholic Church is no better. Because it says in paragraph 2068 that you obtain salvation through faith, baptism, and the observance of the commandments.

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So you obtain salvation in part through what you do. This is a false gospel. False gospel.

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And it's just false gospel. And I got so much to say about that, but I'm going to move on. And in verse 11, not only this, but we exult, exult,

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E -X -U -L -T. In God, through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received the reconciliation.

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Who's the we? Those who have trusted in Christ, been reconciled. Now, what does reconciliation mean?

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There's a lot of different words. It's used six times in the New Testament. It's a really interesting word.

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But reconciled, reconciliation from katalagame.

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And what we're talking about here, let me get back so you guys can see this text. So what we're going to be doing here is understanding that reconciliation is being put in the right relationship.

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I could get into a study on this. Don't have time right now. But it's interesting, just on the word reconciliation. And I've got a little bit of information about that.

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Maybe I'll do that tomorrow. Maybe. Who knows? Because reconciliation is important. Therefore, verse 12,

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Romans 5, 12. This is a critical verse. Just as through one man, sin entered into the world, and death through sin.

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And so death spread to all men, because all sinned. Sin entered the world through one man.

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Adam and Eve were in the garden. She sinned first. She gave the fruit to Adam.

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But sin entered the world through Adam. Because he is the representative. He was the one in authority.

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He was the federal head. Not Eve. Not the woman. Now this, I could springboard into things like women pastors and elders.

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Why that's not supposed to be. And any church that has women pastors and elders is moving towards apostasy and false teaching.

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Dead serious. That's what I firmly believe. And I'll say it once again. If anybody wants me to have a formal debate on whether or not the

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Bible supports women pastors and elders, I'd be glad to fly out to your church and we'll have it formal.

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And have it recorded. You both can do what you want with the recordings. As long as you don't modify them and make it so that it doesn't say.

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Which I know Christians wouldn't do. But I'd be glad to have that debate. And I've been offering this for about 20 years now on radio.

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Not a single offer. Not a single offer has been accepted. Where I will fly out to a church and do a debate on this issue.

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Can women be pastors and elders? Does the Bible support it? That's another topic. But through one man, sin entered the world.

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Because he was the federal head. Federal headship is a teaching that the male, not the female, represents a descendant.

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This is seen down in verse 19. When it says through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinner.

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Through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinner. Not through Eve. Not through Adam and Eve.

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But through Adam only. This is critical doctrine. And I could teach on that for a long time.

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All right. And so, because sin entered the world through Adam. And death through sin.

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Because the wages of sin is death. Romans 6 .23. And God said this in Genesis 2 .17.

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He said to Adam in the day you eat of the fruit, you will die. But the wages of sin is death.

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And so, Paul says, and death spread to all men. Because all sinned. That's why all die.

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Now here's the question. Why do babies die? You know, I had a son,

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Jacob. And he died right after being born. Literally in my wife and I's arms.

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Okay. And so, why did he die? If people say, well, he's innocent and he hadn't sinned.

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Then why did he die? This is because sin entered the world through one man.

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And death spread to all men. Because all sinned. That's what's going on.

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We can get into that teaching of Adamic representation. There is so much.

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I could spend a month on Romans 5. And just follow the tangents that I know about that are in that chapter alone.

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Now, this is an interesting verse. Verse 13. For until the law, sin was in the world.

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But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Now, the word impute here is to reckon to another's account legally.

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It's to charge. It has to do with legality. And until the law, sin was in the world.

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So, what's going on here? That's what the Bible talks about. It's talking about that with the issue of the law.

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The law was first given by God in Genesis 2 .17. Don't eat of the tree, because if you do, you'll die. That's law.

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So, law was there. And other laws that God gave. The law written in our hearts.

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But sin is not imputed when there is no law. Now, I can really get into this verse here quite a bit.

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And cross -reference it to Colossians 2 .14. Which says that Jesus cancelled the certificate of debt.

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Consisting of decrees, which was hostile to us. He took it out of the way, having nailed it to the cross. What is a certificate of debt?

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Is it the law, as some say? Or is it our sin debt? If it's the law that's cancelled, then there can't be any sin imputed to anybody.

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Because there's no law. So, what was cancelled? It was a sin debt. Who was it cancelled for?

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The believers. There's music. We'll be right back after these messages. We'll start with, or continue with, verse 14.

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Be right back. Please, stay tuned. It's Matt Slick Live!

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Taking your calls at 877 -207 -2276. Here's Matt Slick.

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Alright everybody, welcome back to the show. Before I continue on, I'm going to get into some heavy stuff here. It'll be really good. The next few verses in Romans 5.

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I just want to let you know that we definitely need to stay on the air by your support. If you are so inclined, please support us.

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You can go to karm .org forward slash donate. Let me just say that we definitely need that support.

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If you would be so kind as to consider supporting us at $5 a month, maybe even $10 a month. We don't need a whole bunch.

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We just need a thousand people doing $5 and we can meet our bills. We are having difficulty because this is how things are sometimes.

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And we are in that need. I don't like really talking about it. I don't want to make it sound really bad or anything.

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But as the head of the organization, I need to let people know what the needs are.

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And if you could be so kind as to support us. If you're already doing that $5 a month, praise God, you're done.

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Thank you. That's it. And if you can't do that but you want to support us, you know what? Pray. Pray. We would love if you would pray for us and just help us out.

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So there you go. All right. Let me get back on here to Romans 5 starting at verse 14.

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Nevertheless, death reigned from Adam until Moses, even over those who had not sinned in the likeness of the offensive

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Adam, who was a type of him who was to come. So people sinned not in a direct way against God by having the direct word of God to their face.

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And then they blew it. But they sinned in different ways. There are different ways of sinning. And everybody is guilty of sin before God.

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Now what Paul is going to get to here, I want to jump into this because this is really important. I'm going to read more slowly starting at verse 15 because there's some interesting concepts here.

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This is something that is not picked up by a lot of commentators that I've read. And nor a lot of pastors.

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On a very rare occasion, I've heard these particular areas of Scripture taught. I'm not knocking them on this thing.

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There's some interesting stuff here. You see, it says, but the free gift, the free gift.

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All right. The free gift is not like the transgression. The transgression being the sin of Adam.

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For if by the transgression of the one, the many died.

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Notice this phrase, the many. So for if by the transgression of the one, the many died.

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Much more did the grace of God and the gift by the grace of the one man,

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Jesus Christ, abound to the many. Now, here's a question.

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On the many, are they the same group or is it a different group? That's a serious question.

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And you'll see why I'm getting to that in a little bit. We can make the case in verse 15 of Romans 5 that the many is the same group in the first part of the verse as well as the second.

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The transgression of the one, the many died. But through the grace of Christ, it abounded to the many.

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Well, we could say that the grace of Christ abounds to everyone because in Matthew 5, 43 through 48, we see that the love of God is graciously put upon all of us in sunshine and rain and provision.

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We call that general grace special. It is kind of a general kind of provisionary grace that God has.

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So we can make that case there. But I could also make the case that the second, the many, is not exactly the same group as the first one.

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You say, well, how's that? Well, let's go on. Verse 16, the gift is not like that which came through the one who sinned.

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For on the one hand, the judgment arose from one transgression resulting in condemnation.

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But on the other hand, the free gift arose from many transgressions resulting in justification.

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So what he's saying here is that the gift, that's eternal life in Christ Jesus, is not like what

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Adam did because it was just one single sin he did and everything fell in the world because of it.

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No, no, no, not like that. That's not how the free gift is because the free gift, the sacrifice of Christ, was through many transgressions.

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That means that the Jews and the Gentiles, Pontius Pilate, Herod, and the like, did many bad things by which the work of Christ was then manifested on the cross.

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In other words, they killed him. Now, this is interesting because breaking a vase or a glass is easy.

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One movement, you drop it, it's broken. It's very difficult to put it back together.

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But sin entered the world through one transgression and everything just broke because of it. Putting it back together, so to speak, is the work of Christ.

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And this was necessary because he had to be born under the law of Galatians 4 .4,

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the Lord and the angels, Hebrews 2 .9, fulfilling the timeline, fulfilling the crucifixion, fulfilling the virgin birth, all kinds of stuff.

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But what Paul is focusing on are the transgressions, the sinful acts of ungodly people who lied and misrepresented the truth in order to bring about what they wanted.

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Who lied and misrepresented the truth. Does that remind you of anybody politically? That's another point.

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And he goes on in verse 17, And for if by the transgression of the one, that's

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Adam's sin, death reigned through the one, that's through Adam's fall,

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Adam's rebellion, Adam's sin, much more those who receive the abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the one,

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Jesus Christ. Interesting choice of words. Will reign in life. So if by the transgression of the one, that's

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Adam, death was everywhere. But much more, we receive the abundance of grace and the gift of righteousness through Jesus.

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And this is obtained by faith. What Paul is doing is contrasting the fall, the transgression of Adam and the work of Christ.

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In verse 15, the free gift is not like the transgression of Adam.

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It's different. And in verse 16, the gift which came through is not like that which came through Adam who sinned.

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He's differentiating between this again. You see, they're different. Because Adam blew it by one act and everything went bad.

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But Jesus, he fulfilled everything that was good inside of all of the things that were bad.

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All the failures and all the sins and the rebellion of others. So that through it, this maze of evil, the maze and the briar patch of evil and wickedness and lies.

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Yet God wove through it to bring Christ to the place of the redemptive sacrifice.

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Verse 18, so then as through one transgression, Adam sinned, there resulted condemnation to all men.

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Even so, through one act of righteousness, there resulted justification of life to all men.

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This verse is critical. This is, in my opinion, one of the most important verses in the

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Bible. Like John 3 .16, Colossians 2 .14. I believe this is one of the most critical verses.

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I believe that the NASB has it translated correctly, but the other Bibles incorrectly.

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And the reason I say that is because of what it actually says. The result of justification of life to all men.

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Justification means you've declared righteous. And it says to all men. But that implies the idea of everybody being saved, but not everybody is saved.

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So what they do is they translate this differently. They'll say through one transgression, there came condemnation to everybody.

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So also through an act of righteousness, there came justification of life. It doesn't mean it resulted, it was an actuality.

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But it was only potential, depending on what we did. And that's why they do this, because they failed to let the word of God speak.

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And they don't translate it properly. The NASB is the Bible that has it right. And it came to all men.

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Now the word all, just so you know, can be used in different senses at different times.

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Because it can mean, for example, the word all, I've done a study. And I have it on my charts, tables and charts on Karm.

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It's used at least five different ways. It can be spoken of every individual. Not every individual.

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Of varying things. Of totality. It can be spoken of in a variety of different ways.

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But you can go read in that study. So here's the point I'm trying to make. And I get through it because I only have four minutes left in the show.

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Is that through Adam's transgression, it resulted in the condemnation to all men.

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But through Christ's sacrifice, it resulted in justification of life to all men. But we know that that all can't be the same all as the first.

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Who's the second all? Jesus says, all that the Father gives me will come to me. First Corinthians 15 .22.

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That's what he says. And we also know that only believers have died with Christ.

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Died to sin. Died to the world. We see that in scripture. It's all over scripture.

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Whenever anybody dies with Christ or is said to have died to the world and died to sin, it's only in reference to the believers.

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And the reason this is so important is because when we go to 2 Corinthians 5 .14, it says, for the love of Christ controls us.

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Having concluded this, that one died for all. Therefore, all died.

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The all who died. Who is that? That's only the believers.

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He died for all. Therefore, all died. Now, that is worth a deep dive, but we don't have time.

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We get into verse 19. It says, for as through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

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Through one man's disobedience at Adam's sin, the many were made sinners.

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Now, this is important because in the Greek, this phrase, were made sinners, is what's called the aorist passive indicative.

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Why is that so important? Aorist means past tense. Passive means it happened to them.

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You didn't do it. It happened to you. Indicative means it's a fact. They were made sinners by Adam's sin.

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We were made sinners by Adam's sin. This is what original sin is.

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That through Adam's sin, we were made sinners. That's what the Bible says in Ephesians 2, 3. We are by nature children of wrath.

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Now, notice, this is interesting. Because he says in verse 19, remember I said earlier, the many?

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Check this out. For as through the one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

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Even so, through the obedience of the one, the many will be made righteous. So what you can see here, this is so important.

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In verses 15 through 19, that Paul uses the same word in one place all to mean two different groups.

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And the many in two different verses to also mean two different groups. I've never heard anybody else talk about this.

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But it's right there. I remember when I first came across this, I don't know, 30 years ago, whatever it was.

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It just blew me away. It took me two weeks of intense study to figure this out.

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And I've not seen any commentators mention it. I've not seen others talk about it. But it's right there in Scripture.

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It doesn't mean it happened. I'm just saying I haven't seen it because you don't read everything. So, through one man's disobedience, the many were made sinners.

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What's really interesting is in Philippians 1 .29. It says to you, it has been granted.

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And this is also the aorist passive indicative. Which means that it has been granted to believe in him.

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That means you're believing in something that has been granted to you by God. Aorist passive indicative.

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Same thing found in Romans 5 .19. I love this stuff. There's so much good in there. But you know what?

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We're out of time. Because the next two verses, I can do in five seconds. The law came in that transgressions would increase.

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But grace abounded all the more. And through Jesus Christ our Lord to eternal life. This is what

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Paul's teaching. And praise God for what he is teaching. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed that. Maybe the phones will be fixed tomorrow.

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If not, maybe I'll pick something else to teach on. We'll see. Hope you enjoyed. Give me some feedback. Email me at info at carm .org.

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If you like this kind of teaching on the radio. May the Lord bless you by his grace. We're back on the air tomorrow.

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And we'll talk to you then. Have a good one everybody. God bless. Another program powered by the